Indian Pioner Papers - C.L. Thompson

Submitted by Brenda Choate   bcchoate@yahoo.com

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                    Garvin County Indian Pioneer Papers
                                      
                                                                    
                            C.L. Thompson



Interview #1105

Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson

Date: March 15, 1937

Name: Mr. C.L. Thompson

Residence: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma

Date of Birth: March 16, 1875

Place of Birth: Kentucky

Father: R.H. Thompson, born in 1845

Mother: Louisa Smith, born in 1857





My father and mother and myself left Kentucky on a steamboat to 

St. Louis, Missouri and took a train from there to Arkansas.  

We lived in Arkansas nine years, then we moved to Texas in 1889 

and farmed there one year.  My  father wanted to come to the 

Indian Territory, so in 1890 we started out in a wagon working 

two mules.   We settled on Wolf Creek, about 15 miles south of 

Ardmore, Indian Territory.   The first year we farmed, or we tried 

to farm.  We had to plant our crop over seven times because every 

time a hard rain came, Wolf Creek would rise and was away our crop.  

After all this hard luck, we made an average crop, corn was our main 

crop.



I lived with my father and mother until I married in 1897.  Before 

I was married I had bought a wagon and team, so I decided to start 

out on my own.  I loaded up the household goods we had, and my wife 

and I started to the Washita River near Berwyn, Indian Territory.  

We had to wait there three days until the river went down, so we 

could get across.  The man who ran the ferry was afraid to try to 

take us across until the river receded.  I had no money at all. 

We had only beans, cornbread, and squirrel to eat.  After the river 

went down, I gave my razor to the ferryman to take us across.

We located near Ashland, about thirty-five miles from McAlester.  

I made a living that first winter and saved some money by hunting 

and selling furs.  I owned a good hunting dog.  I have caught as 

many as fifteen skunks in one day with him, and would get about 

one dollar for skink hides and thirty cents a piece for oppossum.   

There were lots of opossum, skunk and coon in that part of the country.  

I saved up some money and the next year, 1898, I made my first crop by 

myself.  I rented twenty acres and the land-lord wanted it planted in 

cotton.  I planted fifteen acres of cotton and the five acres besides 

my garden, in corn.  I made plenty of corn and several bales of cotton.  

I had to haul my cotton thirty-five miles to a gin at McAlester.  It 

took about three days to go to the gin and back home.



I farmed around Ashland until 1903, then I decided to sell out and 

go back to where my father and mother, and my wife's parents lived, 

near Ardmore.  After starting out I had a man to take us to Woodsville.  

It was on the day the first passenger train was to leave Woodsville for 

Ardmore so they didn't charge any fare.   It was about fifty miles 

distance.  We left there at 10:30 a.m. and arrived in Ardmore at 6:00 p.m..  

We stayed in Ardmore all night and the next day a livery hack took us out 

to my father-in-law's home about fifteen miles and I paid five dollars 

for the ride.



We stayed there awhile and t hen we went to Lindsay and stayed there 

about six months, working for wages by the day.  Then I decided to go 

back to Ashland.   At Ashland I bought one horse and rented a small 

place and started farming again.



In May 1904, I saw my first big cyclone, and immediately following 

that a cyclone came every week for five weeks.  That year I made only 

about thirteen hundred pounds of cotton, but the next year I made a 

good crop.  On March 16, 1907, my thirty-second birthday, my wife and 

I became the parents of a nine-pound baby girl.



I lived around Ashland until 1924, when I moved to Pauls Valley, where 

I now live.  I am the father of ten children, eight girls and two boys; 

six of my children are living.  



My father and mother have been dead several years.